How to stop social media addiction?
Like anything in life, everything has a bright side and a negative side, and social media is one of them.
Yes, social media solved many problems around the world, but also it gave birth to a lot of problems as well.
Of course, one of them is being addicted to these platforms, and the consequences of it in our ability to focus on the most important things.
I’m not going to talk about the psychological effect of the addiction, but I’m going to underline the negative consequences of being and staying productive on the things that truly matter.
So, how to stop social media addiction? Here are 3 sure ways that will help you to use social media favorably, and in a healthy dose:
How To Stop Social Media Addiction
Tip #1: Pick Up On The Cues
What is triggering this temptation to constantly check your favorite social media platform?
basically, the envrionement is composed by objects. Wherever you go, physical objects are surrounding you. I know, it sounds crazy, and wimpy, but stay with me…
I’m saying this just to awaken your awareness a bit. Those objects are also known as cues that shape the way how you interact with this so-called environment.
A simple example! When you put a bottle of water in front you at your desk, suddenly you will find yourself drinking more water, and the opposite is true.
Assessing the way how you use your phone, might be the first thing to start with.
- When you’re setting on your desk to work on something, do you put your phone in front of you?
- Where those apps are located in your phone? Are they in the home screen? If yes, that could be one of the reasons why you are addicted.
Also, there are what called the psychological cues.
Social media gave us the freedom with a click of a button, to share our intimate life with the world.
Yes it’s awesome in the surface, but it has many undesirable effects, and one them is validation.
And that could transfrom to a psychological disease, that unfortunately many people were trapped into.
The button line, is to analyze deeply your environment and your psyche to know the cause of this modern addiction.
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Tip #2: Fill Up Your Time With Something Useful
One of the reasons why we are morelikely to be in this digital trap, is having a lot of free time.
I once read that if you don’t choose your own problems (in our case learning something new), your brain will come up with worse problems (addictions for example)
And that’s what we see in our lives. If you track down to the events that led someone to be addicted with something (alcohol, drugs, women) you will find the primary cause was having a lot free time.
So, my advice is to pick up a skill you want to learn, or deepen some intrests you may have, or learn about new topics to make new discoveries. The point is to fill up your time with something useful.
It’s also called the law of remplacement. Often times, what we tend to do, is we try to stop a bad addiction or a bad behavior through the sheer amount of willpower, believing that it’s enough.
But the untold truth is that our mind can’t bear the void. So, if you don’t fill the hole (in our case with something useful) automatically your mind will get you to do that (bad) thing you want to remove.
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Tip #3: Go For a Digital Detox
Sometimes, and in certain situations, and for certain people, challenge works the best.
You probably implemented many ways, and tips in the past to dump this dependency to social media,and unfortunately, nothing seemed to work.
You have two options: The first one, is to look for a specialist to remove the addiction like a social media addiction treatment center, or the last chance is to go for a digital detox.
Here’s the caveat, though: Don’t start with 15 days or even 7 days from the get go as many people claim online.
The neurolagical patterns built for this sort of behavior are still strong, and thick. To dismantle them properly, you got to start with ease, and small steps.
Just go for one day (24 hours), and see how it goes. If it’s a little bit hard, and you are tempted all the time, it’s normal. In this period, make sure to hide any cue that might increase this temptation.
And as I said in the second tip, immerse yourself with something useful to distract your brain from this temptation.
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